"The Wampus cat is a magical creature that lives in the Appalachian Mountains. They can walk upright and run faster than arrows in flight. Ordinary spells simply cannot hit a prepared Wampus cat."
"In the Ministry's classification system, they are rated XXXXX, which means they are extremely dangerous and cannot be tamed. But as long as you have no intention of harming these creatures, they will not hurt you without cause, nor will they make you a target for hunting."
In the classroom of the Care of Magical Creatures hut, Evans pointed to the running Wampus cat portrait on the blackboard, describing the abilities and characteristics of this creature.
Cold wind blew outside the windows, making the wind chimes under the eaves ring with crisp sounds. Inside the hut, the fireplace crackled, dispelling the chill and bringing warmth to every young wizard.
Entering November, the weather had gradually changed from cool to cold. Evans had moved his teaching location from outdoors to indoors, trying to ensure the young wizards had a relatively comfortable learning environment.
"Wampus cats' eyes can see through people's hearts, with effects even stronger than ordinary Legilimency. So as long as you have even the slightest bad intention, they will sense it."
"Besides this, they also have extremely strong hypnotic abilities. If you make eye contact with them, you will fall into illusions and be unable to extricate yourself. The illusions created by Wampus cats are often based on information obtained through their Legilimency—the stronger your inner desires, the stronger their abilities become."
After describing the Wampus cat's abilities, a flash of regret passed through Evans's eyes.
Unfortunately, Tim was really too socially anxious and completely unwilling to come as a guest teaching aid. He could only give the young wizards a purely theoretical lesson based on pictures and descriptions from "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them".
If Tim were willing, he really wanted every young wizard to see a Wampus cat's form with their own eyes and experience a Wampus cat's hypnosis. Under his careful guidance, Tim's hypnosis skills had already surpassed most memory masters. If those young wizards practised more, they wouldn't be helpless when facing enemies skilled in memory magic in the future.
But he could also understand why Tim's personality had become like this. Wampus cats' Legilimency was a passive ability—just by standing there, the memories and thoughts of surrounding creatures would continuously flow into their minds. The more people there were, the more information they had to process simultaneously, and the more uncomfortable they became.
It was like having dozens or hundreds of people talking in your ear at once, while your brain had to forcibly remember what those people said. Just thinking about that kind of overwhelming sensation made one shudder.
Shaking his head, Evans continued: "Wampus cat whiskers and tail hair can be used as wand cores. Wands made with this material will have excellent strength in memory magic and can more quickly master memory magic that should be very difficult."
"But such wands have poor adaptability to magic other than memory magic. Combined with the Wampus cat's rarity and untameability, these wands don't have very high cost-effectiveness and can only be used as backup wands."
"Moreover, Wampus cat tail hair and whiskers are extremely expensive. Unless you plan to specialise in memory magic in the future, even as backup wands, the cost-effectiveness is really too low."
Listening to Professor Kahn's explanation, the young wizards below whispered among themselves: "I remember at an auction my father took me to, such materials appeared. One Wampus cat hair costs over 500 Galleons—ridiculously expensive!"
"What? With that price you could get dozens of wands from Mr Ollivander!"
"Actually you couldn't buy that many. Young wizards' first wands have Ministry subsidies, but if you need to buy additional wands later, each one costs dozens of Galleons."
"That's still a lot! My dad's monthly salary seems to be only around 100 Galleons—"
Hearing the surrounding discussions, Fred leaned toward George and whispered:
"I remember Professor Kahn's list had Wampus cat hair—20 performance points for one hair, very cheap!"
"What do you think would happen if someone exchanged these to sell for money?"
"That's probably a benefit the Professor gives us." Hearing the Weasley brothers whisper, Cedric nearby came over and said softly: "Besides, Professor Kahn's list has many things more precious than Wampus cat hair. Using performance points to exchange for this would be somewhat wasteful."
"That's true." Fred muttered. There were really too many rare materials and spells on the Magical Creatures Club list. Compared to them, Wampus cat tail hair wasn't much.
After briefly chatting, the few stopped being distracted and continued listening carefully to the lesson.
The class time passed quickly. At the end of the lesson, Evans looked around:
"Today's homework is an essay related to Wampus cats. You can write about their living habits or about their abilities and hair uses. If you have reference materials, points can be added accordingly."
"In the first class after Christmas, I'll conduct another semester activity based on your scores. This time, the top five in each grade will receive the Niffler pouch enchantment."
Seeing the expectant looks in the young wizards' eyes, Evans smiled slightly:
"Scoring starts now and continues for one month. Everyone work hard!"
Having said this, he waved his hand, letting the young wizards disperse on their own.
After the last student bid farewell and left, Evans put away the drawings on the blackboard, waved his wand to clean the classroom once, found a chair and sat down.
After entering winter, the Magical Creatures Club gatherings basically involved clearing some dark creatures at the Forbidden Forest's edge and helping magical creature communities near the school adjust their condition and treat some simple minor illnesses.
After all, with colder weather, exploration speed would correspondingly slow down. Moreover, they had already explored the Demiguise's territory quite thoroughly—expanding further outward would become more difficult.
After all, not every territory's leader was as easy to talk to as the Demiguise.
However, some creatures only appeared in winter. If there was information about those creatures, he could take that group of young wizards to broaden their horizons.
Suddenly, Evans's gaze sharpened as he looked to the side.
A letter had somehow appeared in the classroom's mid-air, slowly floating down.
A strange gleam flashed in Evans's eyes as he reached out to catch the letter and examined it briefly.
It was an ordinary-looking letter with no signature or addressee written on it.
But the fact that it could appear out of nowhere in his hut meant it was definitely not ordinary.
As far as he knew, only one person in the entire school could do such a thing.
"Sending a letter for such a short distance?" Shaking his head, Evans opened the letter and pulled out the note inside. The content on the note was very simple—just one sentence:
[Come to the headmaster's office. The curse specialist I found for you has arrived.]